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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Christianity > Early Church
St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397, was one of the most important figures of the fourth century Roman empire. This volume explores the enormous impact of Ambrose on Western civilization, and examines the complexity of his ideas and influence; as a poet, ascetic, mystic and politician. Ambrose combines an up-to-date account of his life and work, with translations of key writings. Ramsey's volume presents a comprehensive and accessible insight into a relatively unexplored persona and argues that Ambrose has influenced the Western world in ways as yet unrealized.
Since the photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls were released in 1992, there has been an explosion of interest in them. This volume explores the issue of apocalypticism in the Scrolls; how the notions of the 'end', Messianic expectation and eternal life affected the Dead Sea sect, influenced Judaism and filtered into Christianity. Collins' volume provides a valuable and accessible introduction to the interpretation of the Scrolls, which is an informative addition to the series examining the major themes of the Scroll texts.
This volume introduces what has sometimes been called "the third component of western culture". It traces the historical development of those religious traditions which have rejected a world view based on the primacy of pure rationality or doctrinal faith, emphasizing instead the importance of inner enlightenment or gnosis: a revelatory experience which was typically believed to entail an encounter with one's true self as well as with the ground of being, God. The contributors to this book demonstrate this perspective as fundamental to a variety of interconnected traditions. In Antiquity, one finds the gnostics and hermetics; in the Middle Ages several Christian sects. The medieval Cathars can, to a certain extent, be considered part of the same tradition. Starting with the Italian humanist Renaissance, hermetic philosophy became of central importance to a new religious synthesis that can be referred to as Western Esotericism. The development of this tradition is described from Renaissance hermeticists and practitioners of spiritual alchemy to the emergence of Rosicrucianism and Christian theosophy in the seventeenth century, and from post-enlightenment aspects of Romanticism and occultism to the present-day New Age movement.
Prayer From Alexander To Constantine presents a diverse selection
of prayer chosen by over 40 different historians, all specialists
in their respective areas of Graeco-Roman literature. This
collaboration gives the book a range and depth that no individual
author could hope to rival.
Prayer From Alexander To Constantine presents a diverse selection
of prayer chosen by over 40 different historians, all specialists
in their respective areas of Graeco-Roman literature. This
collaboration gives the book a range and depth that no individual
author could hope to rival.
This study discusses early Christian texts dealing with food, eating and fasting. Modern day eating disorders often equate food with sin and see fasting as an attempt to regain purity, an attitude which can also be observed in early Chritian beliefs in the mortification of the flesh. Describing first the historical and social context of Judaism and the Graeco-Roman world, the author then proceeds to analyze Christian attitudes towards food. Thus, a particular Christian mode of fasting is elaborated which influences us to the present day: ascetic fasting for the suppression of the sexual urges of the body. The book should be of use to those interested in early Christianity, and to those searching for historical roots of modern attitudes.
"Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries" focuses on
religion during the period of Roman imperial rule and its
significance in women's lives. Discussing the rich variety of
religious expression, from pagan cults and classical mythology to
ancient Judaism and early Christianity, and the wide array of
religious functions fulfilled by women, the author analyzes key
examples from each context, creating a vivid image of this crucial
period which laid the foundations of Western civilization.
In this original study, Vernon Robbins brings together
social-scientific and literary-critical approaches to explore early
Christianity. Treating its canonical texts as ideological
constructs, Robbins investigates Christianity as a cultural
phenomenon, and expounds and develops a system of socio-rhetorical
criticism.
Books and bodies, women and books lie thematically at the center of The Gendered Palimpsest, which explores the roles that women played in the production, reproduction, and dissemination of early Christian books, and how the representation of female characters is contested through the medium of writing and copying. The book is organized in two sections, the first of which treats historical questions: To what extent were women authors, scribes, book-lenders, and patrons of early Christian literature? How should we understand the representation of women readers in ascetic literature? The second section of the book turns to text-critical questions: How and why were stories of women modified in the process of copying? And how did debates about asceticism - and, more specifically, the human body - find their way into the textual transmission of canonical and apocryphal literature? Throughout, Haines-Eitzen uses the notion of a palimpsest in its broadest sense to highlight the problems of representation, layering, erasure, and reinscription. In doing so, she provides a new dimension to the gendered history of early Christianity.
Despite over 200 million adherents, Eastern Orthodox Christianity attracts little scholarly attention. While more-covered religions emerge as powerful transnational forces, Eastern Orthodoxy appears doggedly local, linked to the ethnicity and land of the now marginalized Eastern Europe. But Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age brings together new and nuanced understandings of the Orthodox churches--inside and outside of Eastern Europe--as they negotiate an increasingly networked world. The picture that emerges is less of a people stubbornly refusing modernization, more of a people seeking to maintain a stable Orthodox identity in an unstable world. For anyone interested in the role of Eastern Orthodoxy in the 21st century, this volume provides the place to begin.
The first translation into English of Life of the Fathers, a collection of twenty lives of saints which lives present a cross-section of the Gallic Church and are a counterpart to the secular society described in Gregory's History of the Franks.
Modelling Early Christianity explores the intriguing foreign social
context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in
which the Christian faith was first proclaimed and the New
Testament documents were written. It demonstrates that a
sophisticated analysis of the context is essential in order to
understand the original meaning of the texts.
Modelling Early Christianity explores the intriguing foreign social
context of first century Palestine and the Greco-Roman East, in
which the Christian faith was first proclaimed and the New
Testament documents were written. It demonstrates that a
sophisticated analysis of the context is essential in order to
understand the original meaning of the texts.
"The Suffering Self" is a ground-breaking, interdisciplinary study
of the spread of Christianity across the Roman empire. Judith
Perkins shows how Christian narrative representation in the early
empire worked to create a new kind of human self-understanding -
the perception of the self as sufferer. Drawing on feminist and
social theory, she addresses the question of why forms of suffering
like martyrdom and self-mutilation were so important to early
Christians.
By applying perspectives from sociology and anthropology to a wide range of biblical data, The First Christians in their Social Worlds examines how the New Testament documents were influenced by the social realities of the early Christian communities for whom they were written, with the result that the texts reveal an intimate connection between society and Gospel. Overlaying this theoretical foundation, Philip Esler's book studies specific socio-political ideas in various texts of the New Testament, for example, charismatic phenomena, the admission of Gentiles into early Christian communities, sectarianism, and millenarianism and its relationship to political oppression. |
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